By Luciana Chavez

RaleighNews and Observer

Reprinted with permission

BUIES CREEK - When Dale Steele rolls out of bed each morning, he hoists a heavy load onto his 51-year-old back with a big grin. Steele, a career assistant in his first college head coaching position, is reconstructing the Campbell football program, which hasn't seen the sunlight since 1950.

A year into the job and more than a year before its first game, Steele's mug has been the face of Campbell football.

Steele's staff officially started work June 1. On June 2, the staff hosted the first big football gathering -- A Day for the Camels: Touchdown 2008.

The fundraiser allowed Steele to push the bricks another few feet forward. Let him tell you how it's going ...

"It wasn't what [Campbell president Jerry M. Wallace] said but how he said it."

Steele was an assistant head coach at Elon when Campbell announced in April 2006 that it would reinstate the football program as a non-scholarship, Division I-AA sport.

Steele liked the idea of building a program from the ground up. Campbell athletics director Stan Williamson said Steele was a candidate from the start.

Steele, a 30-year coaching veteran, already had recruited in the state (East Carolina, Elon) and coached at a state high school (Northern Nash). He'd worked with Kansas State's Bill Snyder and Georgia's Mark Richt. He'd recruited in a big conference (Big 12) and worked at private schools (Elon, Baylor).

Wallace said Steele was a good match for a school that last played football as a junior college before the Korean War forced it to disband the sport.

Wallace, who joined the Campbell faculty in 1970, never let the idea of a return to the gridiron fade. In March 2006, the school completed a feasibility study that favored bringing football back.

"Every year I've been at Campbell, students say to me, 'When is football coming back?' " Wallace said. "... We're moving into a new convocation center [in 2008], but the football program has inspired the biggest smiles I've seen at Campbell in all my years."

"When I was a kid, maybe 5 or 6, my dad took me to see Auburn play. It was so exciting to be there. I'll never forget it."

Steele thinks of that seminal moment when he tells his players how they, too, could create one for a local child.

Steele's dream took root because the Alabama native grew up around football. His father, Pete, played in college and coached in high school. His mother, Margaret, wanted to play. With her brother Tommy playing for the legendary Bear Bryant, she says cheerleading was a second choice.

Steele and brothers Kevin and Jeff were always at the field, dragging a medicine kit and water bottles as they chased Pete on the sidelines. As a player, Steele would follow sweaty practices with hours of drawing up and studying plays.

A perfectionist streak -- he got it from his dad, Steele says -- showed vividly in high school when Steele was playing for coach Jim King in Prattville, Ala. Noticing that their eldest son looked a little down, Steele's parents asked King to speak to him.

After a long chat, King told the Steeles that nothing was wrong. "Dale just wants to be the best," he said. "It's a great trait. ... He'll be OK."

Building from scratch at Campbell suits Steele, said his brother Kevin, the defensive coordinator at Alabama. (Youngest brother Jeff is an assistant AD at Auburn).

"With an AD and president who have invested so much to make it go, you've got the ultimate support," Kevin Steele said. "No one has an inherent idea about how to do Campbell football the Campbell way. So everyone jumping on board is working to make it perfect. When you're a perfectionist like Dale, that's a great thing."

"I didn't just want someone who wanted a job. I wanted someone who wanted a job here."

While hiring a staff, Steele first called the one man he knew would tell him when he was wrong without offending him -- 30-year coaching veteran Lonnie Hansen.

With his consigliere in place, Steele thinks he has a staff that has embraced working at a private school: Tony Grantham (recruiting coordinator/linebackers), Jerrick Hall (defensive line), Hansen (offensive line), Art Link (defensive coordinator/defensive backs), Landon Mariani (quarterbacks), Oscar Olejniczak (wide receivers), and Benjamin Penny (graduate assistant).

"I remember coaching in high school and having players who I thought could play somewhere but not being able to get anyone to look at him. Here, we'll look at him. We'll give him a shot."

Eighteen Campbell students already have signed up to play for Steele. Another 103 -- all 121 will redshirt in 2007 -- report for practice on August 19.

Signing 103 players for one class took some doing. Having never recruited more than two quarterbacks or five linemen in one shot, he and Hansen had to find six QBs and 18 offensive linemen just to start practice in August.

"I had filled out forms to order equipment and had them all done when the guy I'm ordering from says, 'Coach, did you forget anything?' I say, 'No, not that I can think of.' He says, 'Do you think you might need some footballs?' "

Forgive the boo-boo. Building from scratch means just that.

To keep track of the details, Steele has filled two full-size notebooks -- keeping a smaller one bedside in case inspiration hits at 3 a.m. -- with lists on everything from details about the practice field to lists of alumni to call.

"Do I feel responsible to the people of Harnett County? Yeah. This isn't about me. It's about the kids, the coaches, the university, the people ... I want people to take ownership of this program. It isn't mine. It's theirs."

Steele, husband to high school sweetheart Pam and father to daughters Meghan and Kelsey, looks focused on this big job. But listen to him talk to Campbell operations manager Mike Collins about the new practice field or a professor about the program, and you can hear he's having a blast.

In 446 days, the Camels will run into a new $10 million football stadium to face Birmingham Southern in their first game.

Steele hopes that members of the last Campbell team, such as Bob Rouse, Red McDaniel, and 91-year-old former coach Earl Smith -- will be there on Aug. 30, 2008, in a packed house. He wants the day to feel as joyous and as much like a big event as the one he witnessed when Elon opened its own new stadium in 2001.

Steele wants Campbell football fans to leave saying, "I was there."

Guiding the program to that spot has been a hard climb but Steele says he's blessed.

Why? He'll be there, too.

Staff writer Luciana Chavez can be reached at 829-4864 or luciana.chavez@newsobserver.com.